Publicness and Environmental Justice

Abstract

In recent years, many people have taken interest in the publicness involved in public works much broadcast by the mass media. Now, we have doubts over what publicness should be. This paper clarifies how residents actually have become involved in the issue of publicness at large-scale facilities by examining the case of illegal occupation on state land allocated for the use of Osaka International Airport.First, this essay examines the connection between public space and private space, and attempts to clarify the notion of justice from the point of view of minorities, who occupy an overwhelmingly disadvantageous position. From there, we proceed to examine the process of social space construction, where the right to private abode is informally guaranteed.From the difference in perspectives between state and municipality toward the concept of public space, we analyze the viability and validity of the notion of publicness with regard to “Environmental Justice”. In more specific terms, the municipal authority regarded resident's justice as a reasonable claim of the socially disadvantaged who suffered from discrimination and poverty. In the community, a social space was thus produced on a different level of public definition by national authorities. As a result, the authorities must have recognized the squatters' occupation of the land in question.